Liberals taking notice as noses out of joint over London marijuana operation: MP

Donna Szpakowski, the general manager of the Hyde Park Business Improvement Association, stands in front of a building that houses a medical marijuana growing operation on North Routledge Park in London. Neighbouring businesses have complained to the association about the smell coming from the building. DALE CARRUTHERS / THE LONDON FREE PRESS

The stink raised by neighbours about the odour coming from a northwest London medical marijuana-growing operation has wafted all the way to Parliament Hill.

Kate Young, the Liberal MP for London West, says she’s voiced to the federal government’s marijuana point man the community concerns about a pungent odour coming from a pot operation located in the former Spencer Steel building in Hyde Park.

Hundreds of marijuana plants are being grown inside the old factory, located on North Routledge Park, and neighbour complaints about the odour first started cropping up last fall. Young says she’s raised it with Bill Blair, the government’s minister of border security and organized crime reduction.

“He was making sure that his officials knew that this was a concern,” Young said of Blair, a former police chief in Toronto before entering federal politics in 2015.

Tasked with spearheading the plan for legalizing recreational marijuana, Blair is responsible for administering the Cannabis Act, the federal law governing the drug.

Amid the growing number of complaints, tensions boiled over at a public meeting to discuss the issue in February, when several area business owners demanded Young get Health Canada, the federal cannabis regulator, to inspect the building to ensure it’s in compliance with ventilation requirements.

Citing privacy issues, Young said she can’t find out whether Health Canada officials have visited the building, nor can Blair say whether they’ve been to the site.

“But it doesn’t take away from the fact that we can make sure that Health Canada is aware that there are concerns within the neighbourhood,” she said.

Blair’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Josh Morgan (File photo)

The former factory holds as many as 1,800 cannabis plants, and the owner has a valid permit, Coun. Josh Morgan, whose Ward 7 includes the operation, said at the public meeting.

A man who identified himself as the operator, but wouldn’t give his name, previously said that he grows for medicinal patients and is in full compliance with Health Canada.

Operations like the one in Hyde Park are different than commercially licensed cannabis producers – the large-scale growers who supply the bulk of the country’s medical marijuana and the entire recreational pot market.

Donna Szpakowski, the general manager of the Hyde Park Business Improvement Association, said police were seen at the North Routledge Park building in recent weeks.

“There was nothing criminal at that location,” Const. Sandasha Bough said when asked about the visit.

Pungent odours coming from marijuana-growing and -processing operations have resulted in complaints in communities across Canada.

In Pelham, a town in the Niagara region where a half-dozen pot producers operate, concerns about odour and light pollution prompted municipal politicians to pass an interim bylaw banning new cannabis operations from opening and existing ones from expanding.

Back in London, Young said she canvassed businesses located near the source of the smell over the weekend.

“I just wanted to get a sense from them if they’ve noticed any difference,” Young said, adding the people she spoke with told her the smell isn’t as noticeable lately.

“I want people to know that I’m very concerned and very open to hearing what people are finding.”

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